During the use of such a cooking apparatus, for example a deep fryer, there always exists the risk that the user will forget to refill the vat with oil and will start the frying operation, thus rapidly leading to damage to the vat, such as, for example, cracking or sublimation of the coating which is generally used to facilitate the cleaning of the vat and which internally and externally covers this latter, even to ignition of the deep fryer due to the presence of a film of residual oil on the internal walls of the vat.
To overcome these drawbacks, and hence to ensure the safety of the user and to avoid any damage to the apparatus, it has been proposed to provide such a cooking apparatus with a safety device permitting preventing activation of the electric heating means when the vat, present in the housing, is empty of oil or does not contain sufficient oil. A known safety device uses a temperature detector which reacts to the temperature of the heating means, so as to cut off the electrical supply to the latter when the detected temperature of the heating means exceeds a predetermined maximum temperature corresponding to a vat empty of oil or insufficiently filled with oil. However, to perform correctly its temperature detection function, such a detector must be highly precise and highly reliable, given the high heating powers associated with cooking apparatus, which is difficult to obtain and relatively cumbersome.